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news December 19 - January 8, 2009 The Independent Weekly 3 www.independentweekly.com.au THE LIDDY FILES people to jail. He heard cases of all sorts – drunk driving, domestic violence, petty crime, dishonesty and embezzlement. But for almost 30 years, Liddy also led a secret life. He liked fondling under-age boys. When not on the bench pronouncing others guilty or not guilty, Liddy was on the beach ruining innocent lives.He would go to the Brighton Surf Life Saving Club where he coached young lifesavers. Then he would interfere with them sexually. So Liddy was a practising criminal. Then, eight years ago, police came knocking, as eventually they must. Summons and warrants flew and Liddy did what most scoundrels do: he protested his complete innocence and resolved to clear himself of all the outrageous allegations. Liddy assembled a top-flight defence crew, with solicitor Eugene McGee instructing Marie Shaw QC (who is now Her Honour Judge Shaw of the District Court). On the other side of the table, the prosecu- tion side, sat Trish Kelly (later a QC and now Supreme Court Justice Patricia Kelly). The horsehair was dusted off before Justice Margaret Nyland in Supreme Court of South Australia, and in April 2001 the trial began. It was a salacious, month-long trial, gripping in its voyeurism. Witnesses came and went with lurid tales of abuse and defilement. The jury heard the evidence, and down went Liddy for 25 years – the longest sentence ever handed to a pedophile in SA and possiblyin Australia. Twenty-five years is also the length of time that Liddy had sat on the bench as a magistrate, another Shamed and defamed P SA magistrate Peter Liddy was a serial pederast. He left a trail of broken lives and smashed reputations, but his strangest legacy is the story of a hundred lawyers, buried Spanish treasure and a TV producer who didn’t take yes for an answer. Hendrik Gout has the remarkable story. eter Liddy thought he’d got away with it. The respected magistrate was connected to power. He was power itself. He could – and did – send Peter Liddy led a lavish lifestyle, filling his sprawling home with a bizarre col- lection of artifacts (inset). which made up the booty,’ explains Peter.” Liddy felt very strongly, after his SA record, and while he was there he got rich. He bought himself a veritable mansion – a sprawling, late-Victorian former nunnery called Shenandoah atKapunda, and he filled it with a bizarre collection of artifacts. There was booty from a Spanish galleon – there really was! Pieces of eight, jewels in rings, an ancient mariner’s telescope and pistol, a cutlass or two.Having been under the ocean so long, the prized artifacts would disintegrate if exposed to air, so he kept them in an impressive fishtank of salt water in its own timber cabinet. There was a room filled with 1500 miniature bottles which once held wine and spirits, and they were so valuable that not one bottle should accidentally fall. He had, or claimed to have, an internationally famous collection of early American firearms – muskets, flintlock rifles and pistols with their powder horns from the colonial period, Wild West revolvers and sheriffs’ badges, a brace of consecutive-numbered Colts and a document signed by the great George Washington himself. Peter Liddy liked his lifestyle. He even wrote about it in magazines. He used a pseudonym and inter- viewed himself. It’s really wacky to read Liddy anonymously quoting Liddy in the Australian Shooters Journal. Then there’s this gem in the Australian Country Collector: ‘“Even the Legion of Honour medal of the soldier who once guarded the treasure was ultimately retrieved, as well as rings and other jewellery conviction, that he preferred the 14 main rooms of Shenandoah to the dismal cell in Yatala’s inhospitable G-division where he now spent 23 hours a day with an hour in the exercise yard. Inmates threatened his life. He had to be guarded by closed-circuit television. And he had a bit of time to think. He thought it would be a very good idea to launch an appeal and get his conviction overturned. Meantime, though, Liddy’s vic- tims were also mightily aggrieved. They’d been subjected to a type of torture,which is what child abuse is. Liddy tried to absent himself from court while the victims’ impact statements were being read, but in the end all he could avoid was their eye contact. Continued Page 4 now open for breakfast daily ON HALIFAX On behalf of the management and staff at The Greek, we would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We will be closed from 25th December and re-opening again for Dinner on Friday 2nd January. Normal trading times from Saturday 3rd January. For bookings please call us on 08 8223 3336. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner 7 days a week. 75-79 Halifax St, Adelaide 5000 ph 08 8223 3336 www.thegreek.com.au